It’s not just the AF that does this, it’s all branches. With the downsizing of the military these LoRs are easy ways of thinning the bunch without having to actually come up with a pattern of misbehavior. It puts good service members in a bad place because they end up constantly looking over their shoulder and look…

I never understood why people got so pissed about this. You don’t saulte anyone while you’re wearing civilian clothing as a member of the military.

So who’s job is it to repack the chute for the next landing?

That’s where I stand with it. They are trying to sell it to other countries as a replacment for their F16s and F15s. So you expect it to play the roll of either. Knowing the roll of the B2 is to penetrate airspace and hit a target, they design their mission around its capabilities and weaknesses. It would be wise to…

I don’t necessarily agree with your comparisons to the SR71 or F117. But I see the point you are trying to make with the P51. It’s almost like how the Army doesn’t teach you how to fix bayonets and fight with them in Basic. They teach you to shoot your weapon at a distant targets with body armor, like you would in…

I’d say the most difficult part of landing at this airport is probably making the go/no-go call on the weather. The skill on the part of the pilots really is making a short field approach, same goes for the short field takeoff and having a plan when an engine fails (keep it over the river and hope for the best).

I’ve always wanted to fly around the Caribbean. It seems amazing, the weather is awesome, and those airports look pretty fun to land at.

So everyone seems to think the German Autobahn is this amazing place with unlimited speeds, but no one really takes into account how ridiculous the speed limits are everywhere else.

If you watch the video again you can tell the shots throughout Paris were CGI. I’m sure if they wanted to spend the money they could have shut down Paris for a video shoot.

Just imagine how we could use facial recognition technology. Wait for some bad guy to take a selfie, we recognize his face and his position gets sent back to us. Then we use whatever exotic futuristic weapon we have available to wipe him out.

I don’t think people realize how much planning and coordination go into mundane missions, let alone high profile ones.

Oh I wouldn’t put it past the military to come up with a completely pointless and expensive training mission setup on a day that would inconvenience everyone involved.

Useless is more like it. They’re IBFs, basically an air filter that uses oil to keep the tiny dust particles from entering the engines and chewing up fan blades prematurely. As you can see they’re open right now (the big square up in the front). In other words, they’re not filtering anything. That’s because when it’s…

Easiest way to tell the difference between the UH-60 and SH-60, aside from paint scheme obviously, is the tail wheel. The Seahawk has a tail wheel that’s closer to the fuselage while the Blackhawk has a tail wheel at the end of the tail boom. In case anyone cares.

I’d like to see how our aviation forces stack up to other countries in both a friends and foes type of breakdown. I imagine our Navy alone has more aircraft then some European Navies and Air Forces combined. I’m thinking even compared to Germany or France the US Navy alone probably has figure to rival their branches…

If defense spending was based more on need and reality think of how much more effective the the US military would be with half the budget we have now. This goes beyond the big ticket items like the F35, but simple things like reorganization and reallocation of equipment. The War is Boring article in regards to…

I think what’s most impressive during that flight through DC is that they were able to get so many helicopters working at the same time, especially considering how old they all are. I bet most of the airframes are from the early 80s. Who wants to be the plan was if you broke on start up you got to keep your ass at…

You bring up a few good points. I like the idea that in a democracy the leadership is elected based on what the people want at the time. In today’s political environment we have forgotten that politicians are elected officials that should be at the mercy of the people. Maybe during a full on “Clancy” moment we need a…

I really don’t get what the big fuss is, I’ve seen Foreflight used in the cockpit on iPads on military aircraft. So the Russians are using handheld GPS units for navigation, it’s probably just to increase their situational awareness. I’m sure they have their own GPS system in the aircraft that is just a pain in the…

Well one thing I’ve noticed when it comes to these high profile training events, is we’ll send our best, most experienced personnel to do the job. Sometimes it seems like the military likes to keep all their experience in a small group and relearn all their mistakes when those people leave.